CTO-in-Residence for Accelerators
Give your portfolio companies the senior technical leadership they can't afford to hire full-time. Architecture reviews, technical mentorship, and hands-on guidance for your entire cohort.
Oleg Sotnikov serves as CTO-in-Residence for accelerators, incubators, and venture studios: office hours with each portfolio company, architecture reviews, technical due diligence ahead of investor presentations, and workshops for the whole cohort. Every startup in the cohort also gets the production infrastructure package — GitLab CI/CD, Sentry, Grafana, and Loki — which costs $2,000–5,000/month from commercial providers. He brings 25+ years in engineering leadership and 1,000+ projects to founders making their first architecture and hiring decisions.
One CTO, entire cohort covered
Technical Mentorship at Scale
Most early-stage startups can't afford a CTO, but they desperately need one. I work as a CTO-in-Residence for your program, and each portfolio company gets senior technical guidance without the full-time price tag, including the technical due diligence founders need before they sit down with investors.
- 1-on-1 technical office hours with each portfolio company
- Architecture reviews and technology stack recommendations
- Technical due diligence support for investor presentations
- Code quality audits and engineering process assessment
- Hiring guidance on what to look for in first technical hires
- Bi-weekly cohort-wide technical workshops and Q&A sessions
Production-grade tooling from day one
Infrastructure Package for Cohorts
Every startup in your cohort gets a free infrastructure setup that normally costs $2,000–5,000/month: GitLab CI/CD, Sentry error tracking, Grafana monitoring, and centralized logging. Nobody has to hire a DevOps engineer to run it.
- GitLab CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and deployment
- Sentry error tracking that catches bugs before users do
- Grafana + Loki for monitoring dashboards and centralized logging
- Shared infrastructure that cuts each startup's bill by up to 80%
- Production-ready setup in days, not months
- Ongoing maintenance and support included during the program
Build lean with modern AI tooling
AI-First Startup Building
I teach your cohort how to build products with 2-person teams using AI-augmented development, the same approach that let me maintain a platform serving 190+ countries with just two people.
- AI-augmented development workflows with Claude Code and Codex
- Building MVPs in weeks instead of months using AI tools
- Cost optimization that does more with less from day one
- Practical AI integration into products and business processes
- Avoiding common technical debt traps early-stage startups face
- Scaling architecture that grows with the company, not against it
Who This Is For
Accelerators and incubators who want to level up their technical support.
Startup Accelerators
Give your cohort companies access to a senior CTO without adding headcount to your team.
Incubator Programs
Provide early-stage founders with the technical mentorship they need to build solid foundations.
Venture Studios
Technical leadership across multiple projects: architecture, code quality, and engineering best practices.
Corporate Innovation Labs
Connect innovation teams to production engineering with hands-on technical guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you work with accelerators?
Oleg provides technical mentorship and advisory to accelerator cohorts, helping founders make sound architecture decisions, adopt AI pragmatically, and avoid the cost and hiring mistakes that sink early startups.
What do portfolio founders get?
Access to a fractional CTO with 25+ years in IT, 7 patents, and 1000+ projects, for architecture reviews, technology selection, AI adoption, and cloud cost guidance tailored to each startup's stage.
Can you run technical workshops or office hours?
Yes, from group sessions on architecture, AI, and cost optimization to one-on-one office hours with individual founders.
Why does technical mentorship matter for an accelerator?
Early technical decisions compound. The right architecture and lean, AI-first operations extend runway and lower portfolio risk, and that is where an experienced fractional CTO helps most.
Partner With Your Accelerator
Book a free 30-minute call. Let's discuss how I can add senior technical depth to your program and help your portfolio companies build better, faster.